Universal basic income provides every citizen with a standard set of money no matter their employment status. Research on the topic is sparse and so it remains to be seen whether the system could be successful and sustainable.

That’s why Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes along with Sam Altman, president of the start-up accelerator Y Combinator, and more than 100 other organizers have started a fund and are collecting donations to “research, experiment, and inspire others to think through how best to design cash programs that empower Americans to live and work in the new economy,” the organization’s “statement of belief” reads.

“In 1970, 92% of American 30-year-olds earned more than their parents did at a similar age…In 2014, that number fell to 51%,” Altman tweeted Thursday, citing a Wall Street Journal report on stagnating middle class wages.

There’s a sense of urgency given the coming Trump administration. The announcement comes exactly one month after the election of Donald Trump.

We have more questions than answers, Hughes, who most recently ran The New Republic magazine, told Quartz. But we do know we can unite around the fact that financial security should be a human right and cash is an underutilized tool.

Recipients of the research grants include American Center, Center for Popular Democracy, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the Roosevelt Institute and the Niskanen Center.

Facebook is doubling down on one of the most popular types of mobile ads.

Image: Associated press/Danny Moloshok

As millions of people prepare to give loved ones brand new smartphones this holiday season, Facebook is giving businesses more ways to ply their recipients with apps to populate them.

The social network is launching a new mobile ad format that lets companies showcase products in which a particular customer has shown an interest along with a link to download the brand’s app and complete the purchase.

The offering is an expansion of the dynamic ads regimen Facebook already sells for other types of products and services.

It’s particularly well-suited for e-commerce and travel sites that can make the most use of the cross-promotion to shuttle users from their websites to their apps, according to Christine De Martini, Facebook’s app advertising lead. The inaugural batch of brands includes Hotels.com and Walmart-owned Jet.com.

De Martini said the launch was deliberately timed to coincide with the holiday season, which Facebook was surprised to find is an especially popular time for app downloads.

The company attributes the spike in installs to Christmas gift recipients breaking in their newly opened devices. In fact, the boom for app marketers can extend into January and February, according to previous years’ data, says De Martini.

“We intuitively know with retail and e-commerce that this is a very important time,” De Martini told Mashable in a phone interview. “But it’s a little-known secret that the holiday season is also when we see some of our highest app activity.”

The new ad joins the many targeting options Facebook already offers app makers, including a tool that targets only the users most likely to take a specific action within an app and one aimed at people who have already downloaded an app with potential new uses.

App-install ads are one of the most important revenue streams for Facebook’s mobile ad business, which accounts for the vast majority of its ads money, as well as the mobile ad economy at large.

“It’s definitely a big area of investment for us,” says De Martini. “These app businesses are really growing and we have a lot of investment in helping them continue to grow and sustain their businesses.”

Despite its status as a mobile ads juggernaut, Facebook faces tight competition from upstarts in the sector. An AdAge report last month found that some marketers were seeing higher install rates on Snapchat’s app ads, which the company launched earlier this year.

In an effort to combat income inequality, Portland, Oregon, on Thursday became the first jurisdiction to adopt a tax penalty on companies with excessive CEO-worker pay gaps.

Under the new law, companies doing enough business in Portland to pay the city’s business fee will be taxed an additional 10 percent if their CEO makes 100 times what median workers earn and an additional 25 percent if they make 250 times more.

“This is meant to be a signal that these kinds of ridiculous [pay] ratios are unacceptable,” Portland’s city commissioner Steve Novick told The Huffington Post. “You do not do better as a company because you decide to pay outrages salaries to your CEOs.”

The law will go into effect next year, and Novick said the tax could generate up to $3.5 million in annual revenue for the city.

Sarah Anderson, co-editor of Inequality.org at the Institute of Policy Studies, believes the legislation could “spread like wildfire” to other cities across the nation.

“People are now even more skeptical that anything will happen at the federal level to reduce inequality,” Anderson told HuffPost on Thursday.

She said the threat of “draconian cuts to the social safety net” during a Donald Trump presidency could push leadership from other cities to explore similar innovative sources of revenue.

Corporations can exist without paying their CEOs hundreds of times what they pay their typical workers.Steve Novick, City Commissioner of Portland

More than 500 companies will be affected by the new rule, including Walmart, Honeywell, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and General Electric, according to a statement from IPS.

Anderson said companies affected by this law will have three different options for responding to the tax. They can either narrow the gap by paying their lowest paid workers more, pay their highest paid workers less or do nothing and pay the penalty tax.

“Whichever way they respond, this is going to be good for reducing income inequality,” she told HuffPost.

This progressive law is made possible under Dodd-Frank legislation by a Securities and Exchanges Commission rule that will require publicly traded companies to disclose the pay gap between CEOs and average workers starting next year.

Glenn was the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth, and later became one of his countrys most effective senators

John Glenn, who has died aged 95, was the first American to orbit the Earth and later the oldest person ever to be sent into space. During his long career he transformed himself from a highly decorated combat pilot and astronaut one of the Mercury Seven group of military test pilots selected in 1959 by Nasa to become Americas first astronauts into one of his countrys longest-serving and most effective senators.

His historic space flight on 20 February 1962, when Glenn performed three orbits of the Earth in the Friendship 7 spacecraft, travelling 81,000 miles at more than 17,000mph, was broadcast live around the world. Unbeknown to Glenn, the control centre had received signals early in the flight showing that the heat shield appeared to have broken loose. In the capsule itself the attitude controls had failed. By the time Glenn learned of the heat shield problem during his third orbit, he was reconciling himself to the likelihood that he would have to calculate his own angle of re-entry. If he got it wrong, the capsule would burn up. If he got it right, failure of the heat shield might well produce the same outcome.

In the event the attitude controls partially recovered at the last moment and the heat shield problem turned out to be a faulty indicator. But it had been a grim few minutes. In the final stages of his five-hour flight the astronauts heartbeat had risen from 87 to 132 and on his splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, America went crazy. He was greeted at Cape Canaveral by President John F Kennedy, who gave him the distinguished service medal, and 4 million people turned out for his tickertape welcome to New York.

The president now saw a splendid opportunity to capture a Senate seat in Ohio, Glenns home state. The candidacy of the local superhero would be unbeatable. Glenn declined the proposal, but continued to meet the president and his brother Bobby on a regular basis. After President Kennedys assassination in 1963, Glenn announced that he would run for the seat. But the campaign had barely started when he fell heavily in his bath, sustaining a severe concussion and an injury to his inner ear. He was forced to withdraw.

Following Bobby Kennedys assassination in 1968, Glenn decided that he would make another run for the Senate in 1970. But his political inexperience meant that he did not get through the Democratic primaries. However, he managed to capture a position in the post-Watergate election of 1974, racking up a majority of more than 1 million. When he next faced the electorate, in 1980, he achieved the largest margin of victory in the states history and eventually became the first Ohio senator to win four consecutive terms.

But he hated leaving the limelight. When he decided in 1996 that the 1998 congressional elections would end his 24-year-term, he badgered the head of Nasa, Daniel Goldin, to let him make one more space flight.

The idea was received coolly at first but the agencys doctors eventually decided that the 77-year-old was fit enough to join the crew of the Discovery in the relatively undemanding role of a payload specialist for the space shuttles 92nd mission. They ruled that Glenns flight could provide useful data about the impact of weightlessness on his ageing body, and so Glenn went on the nine-day mission.

There were allegations that the flight was a publicity stunt by a space agency worried by the lack of interest in manned space flights and the potential impact on its budget. It was also widely viewed as Glenns reward for party loyalty and as a consolation for an earlier ruling by President Kennedy not to risk a national hero like Glenn flying to the moon.

Lt Col Glenn was plainly well qualified technically, but not physically. The limited lifting capacity of early US rockets required passengers to weigh less than 13 stone (182lbs). In short order Glenn managed to shed nearly two stone (28lbs) to join 508 potential recruits. After exhaustive aptitude tests had eliminated most of them, he became one of seven astronauts to join Project Mercury.

Rather than indulge in the off-duty drinking and womanising of the other six, he pursued a punishing physical regime. It did not make him popular and his habit of telling colleagues where their duty lay made him even less so. In particular it led to considerable friction between Glenn and Cpt Alan Shepard.

Glenn was desperate to become the first American in space and suffered a severe blow when a vote among his fellow astronauts resulted in Shepards selection. The national adulation that greeted Shepards 15-minute sub-orbital flight in 1961 was even more galling to Glenn, who regarded his selection for Americas first manned orbital flight (an ape had already done two circuits) as very much second best.

But his principal, and often lonely, battle was against nuclear proliferation. When he wrote the 1978 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act to impose stringent rules on the sale to other countries of the USs nuclear materials, it provoked a tidal wave of industrial and diplomatic pressure on him and other legislators before it became law.

His rising status in the Senate led him to believe it was reflected in the country and in 1984 he made a brief and disastrous run at the Democratic presidential nomination. It made little impact on the country but left Glenn $3m in debt. It was against this background that he became entangled in the so-called Keating scandal.

Glenn and five other senators attended a meeting in 1987 to persuade federal regulators not to act against Charles Keating, who had contributed to their campaigns and whose small savings and loan business was in trouble. Keating was later convicted of fraud and the senators involvement in his case was referred to the Senate ethics committee.

Glenn was eventually accused of poor judgment but cleared of any wrongdoing. But the episode had such a serious impact on his popularity in Ohio that, though he was unopposed in the 1992 primaries, he scraped home at the general election with 51%, his lowest-ever poll.

Licensed media characters like Dora the Explorer and Miffy would no longer be used to target young children under initiative by Dutch food industry

Famous childrens characters such as Dora the Explorer may soon disappear from some commercial food packaging in the Netherlands to discourage unhealthy eating habits, food industry representatives have said.

The decision was made after public debates on the impact of advertising targeting children, the umbrella Dutch Food Industry Federation (FNLI) said. Obesity is a problem over which the food industry is greatly concerned.

The move, a first in Europe, would see popular cartoon characters also including Miffy the bunny disappear from generic products perceived as unhealthy that target young children with their packaging.

The new measure aimed to curb packaging with licensed media characters aimed at children up to 13 years, said the FNLI, which represents 450 food industry businesses and 19 organisations.

The newspaper De Telegraaf said: These products are placed on shelves at childrens eye level and are often unhealthy, containing too much salt, sugar or fats.

Dutch health ministry spokeswoman Leonne Gartz said the measures would involve characters like Miffy and Dora the Explorer being removed.

It does not affect characters specific to products, for instance the tiger on a famous cereal brand, she said.

The FNLI hoped that the phasing-out would be implemented during the course of 2017 following a number of tests to ensure the plan did not lead to unfair competition in the market.

Actor Jessica Tovey explains that without trust, consent and transparency on set, traumatic scenes can have traumatic repercussions

Once, before filming an intimate scene, my director sat my male co-star and me down with some Barbie dolls. She wanted to take us through exactly how we were going to do it on screen how we would position our bodies, where the camera would be. She wanted to make us feel comfortable about something that is awkward and difficult to shoot by empowering us with knowledge about what we were about to do.

Ive experienced similar care when shooting scenes of violence when playing roles where I was kidnapped, assaulted, bound and gagged; ones where I had chairs hurled at me and had been thrown across a room. There were always strict protocols in place to avoid injury but even then, when the camera rolled and my fellow actor performed with all of the aggression required to make their performance believable, my adrenaline kicked in. My innate fight or flight instinct made it difficult to remember it was all pretend, and as a result the experience felt close to reality.

Roles involving sex or violence are always tricky, and Ive been lucky to have been treated with appropriate respect during my acting career so far. So it was with a particular sadness and anger that I read this week the revelations about the filming of the Last Tango in Paris.

While shooting the infamous butter rape scene, Maria Schneider, it seems, was treated horrendously. In a video that resurfaced this weekend, director Bernardo Bertolucci said he and Marlon Brando had conspired to surprise Schneider during this scene in order to capture her humiliation. He clarified those comments this week: Schneider knew about the violent nature of the scene, he said, but was unaware that her co-star would use butter as a lubricant.

In a 2007 interview with the Daily Mail, Schneider, now dead, claimed she felt a little raped after the scene was filmed. I was so angry you cant force someone to do something that isnt in the script, but at the time, I didnt know that, she said.

The president-elects name will appear in credits of the show he hosted for more than a decade, confirming a continuation of his business entanglements

Donald Trump will not give up his role as an executive producer of The Celebrity Apprentice, the reality TV shows studio said on Thursday, confirming a continuing business entanglement of the president-elect but not its details.

Trumps name will appear in the credits of the show, studio MGM told Variety magazine on Thursday, after the name of show creator Mark Burnett and before that of programs new host, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Trump hosted the show for more than a decade before his presidential campaign, during which NBC, the network that airs the show, broke ties with him over his claims that Mexican people are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and their rapists.

A spokeswoman for MGM did not immediately reply to questions about the arrangement. The studio did not disclose to Variety any terms of the deal except that it would pay Trumps fees, and that NBC would not. A spokesman for Trumps transition team did not reply to a request for clarification.

During a string of meetings last month to interview potential cabinet members of the next White House, Trump met with Ari Emanuel, his agent while he was on The Apprentice and the brother of Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff for Barack Obama. Trump gave no details about that meeting, only telling reporters outside a New Jersey golf club that the meeting was very good. Great guy. Great friend of mine.

Burnett has denied that he supported Trumps presidential campaign, and said in October that he and his wife reject the hatred, division and misogyny that has been a very unfortunate part of his campaign. The producer also denied that he suppressed leaked unaired footage or audio from Trumps time on the show.

A former contestant, Summer Zervos, is one of several woman who has accused Trump of kissing and groping her. Trump bragged about being able to grab and kiss women without consent in leaked audio from a 2005 appearance on Access Hollywood, near the peak of his fame from The Apprentice.

Every village will get two point-of-sale machines, promises finance minister in bid to ease anger at sudden removal of 500- and 1,000-rupee notes

Tens of thousands of Indian villages will soon be equipped with card-swiping machines to boost cashless payments, the finance minister promised on Thursday, a month after the government banned high-value banknotes.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi sparked chaos with his shock announcement last month that all 500- and 1,000-rupee notes which make up 85% of bills in circulation would cease to be legal tender.

Cash accounts for 90% of transactions in India where millions rely heavily on notes for their daily purchases. People living in rural areas and individuals without bank accounts have been particularly hard hit.

To ease frustrations and speed up the switch to cashless spending, finance minister Arun Jaitley announced measures to promote the so-called demonetisation drive, including card-swiping machines for villages.

There will be two point-of-sale machines provided to every village which has a population up to 10,000, and 100,000 villages will be selected for this purpose, Jaitley said at a media conference. This will benefit farmers covering a total population of nearly 750 million, he said.

The sweeping abolition was meant to bring billions in so-called black, or undeclared, money back into the formal system.

Many have been left without enough cash to buy food or daily essentials, while farmers have been unable to buy seeds and small traders say business has fallen off a cliff.

Nonetheless, Modi has repeatedly defended the scheme, accusing its detractors of being tax evaders and repeatedly urging all Indians to switch to non-cash payment methods.

The hermit tradition has endured in some cultures for millennia. But what does it mean today? We meet those who are cut off for a variety of reasons

In 2013, police came across a man in the US state of Maine stealing food from a local summer camp at night. It appeared to be a simple case of theft at first. But what was going on was far more unusual. According to reports, Christopher Knight, then 47, had walked into the woods at the age of 19 and never came out. He built himself a makeshift shelter and survived by taking food from nearby homes and camps, just as he was doing on the night he was caught. Knight had hardly spoken to anyone during his entire time in solitude.

Its not clear why Knight dropped out of society, but it happened a year after he graduated from Lawrence high school in Fairfield about 1986. The only big interview he did was with Michael Finkel, an American journalist. The article appeared as a series of conversations for GQ magazine. Knight, who has been given a possible diagnosis of Asperger syndrome, a form of autism, said he couldnt explain why he left society. He told Finkel: I found a place where I was content.

The tradition of the hermit has endured in some cultures for millennia. Those who do so for religious reasons tend to live in contemplative silence. The first known Christian hermit was Paul of Thebes and his disciple, Anthony the Great, followed Jesuss lead by going into the wilderness in about AD270. Many have since emulated him. There are also Buddhist and Hindu hermits. Its thought there are still 200 religious hermits in Britain today.

Then there are those, perhaps more common in modern times, who are cut off because of mental or physical ill-health. In Japan, there is a a phenomenon called hikikomori where young men and women withdraw from society.

We asked our readers for their experiences of living as a recluse. We approached five people to find out more. Here are their stories:

I worked as a science teacher before committing myself to a life of celibacy and contemplative silence

RachelDenton has lived as a religious hermit for the last decade.

It was in 2006, after five years of preparation, that I formally took my vows at a special mass to become a diocesan hermit. You have to get permission from the church before you can do this.